09.05.10: First Re-Visit of a Comet in the Works.

An artists’ impression of Stardust NExT at comet Temple 1.
  NASA engineers directed the Stardust spacecraft to fire its rockets briefly on the of 17th of February, putting it on course for a new mission; a flyby of comet Tempel 1 February 14th of next year. If that comet sounds familiar, it should be; Tempel [...]

22.04.10-The Exotic World of Prometheus.

 The tiny shepherd world of Prometheus.
    The moons of Saturn continue to astound. The count now stands at 61, and one by one, NASA’s Cassini orbiter is giving us a close up look at these unique worlds, some for the first time. Last year, Cassini passed within 36,000 miles of Prometheus just the day after [...]

20.04.10: Hubble Smashes KBO record.

 
 The Structure of the Kuiper Belt.
   The Hubble Space Telescope has shattered yet another record; the smallest Kuiper Belt Object yet recorded. But the discovery came not from the telescope’s main optical array, but an unlikely source; its Fine Guidance Sensors. These star trackers point the HST and sample target stars 40 times a second. Using [...]

13.04.10- Mammoth Extinction vs. Impact Theory.

  
   An Ice Age extinction mystery has just got more complicated. North America used to be home to some amazing mega-animal life, including wooly mammoths, saber-toothed cats the size of grizzly bears, and armadillos the size of Volkswagens. Then, around the time period known as the Younger Dryas about 12,900 years ago, a mass continent-wide [...]

Event: Mars passes the Beehive.

 
  
    This week offers a two-fer, an easy to spot naked eye conjunction of two very different objects and a difficult to observe occultation. 1st up is a close pairing of the planet Mars and M44, the Beehive Cluster. From the 13th of April until the 20th, both will be grouped in a visual circle [...]

11.04.10- Pale Blue Crescent.

 
 Earth as seen from Rosetta.
   It has been said innumerable times that in traveling into space, we’ve discovered the Earth. The Rosetta spacecraft reminded us what a unique place our home is on its trajectory altering flyby on November 13th of last year. Pictured above, you can easily tell that Earth is not a stagnant world, [...]

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